


i need to know (if this is mutual)

by catching_paper_moons



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Multi, Pining, connor mcdavid likes to meddle and he cannot be stopped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-05-30 15:18:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15099485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catching_paper_moons/pseuds/catching_paper_moons
Summary: “Yeah, but this is weird. They like, won’t admit to it being weird but I can tell that it is, they’re being so awkward,” Connor says, and Nuge gives him a look. “What?”“Are you meddling? Do we need to rehash what happened last time?” Nuge stands up to throw his container away, and Connor follows suit. Nuge turns around, expectant. “Do we?”(Or, Connor’s in love with his best friends. Yeah, both of them.)





	i need to know (if this is mutual)

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [stumblebee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stumblebee/pseuds/stumblebee) in the [PuckingRare2018](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/PuckingRare2018) collection. 



> big thanks to stumblebee for the prompt and letting me fill it!
> 
> this wouldn't have gotten done without many people, so big thanks to e and a for inspiration and help, and h for the beta work and also lots of help and being generally wonderful.
> 
> see end for more detailed tags.
> 
> title is from "mutual" by shawn mendes.

Being the captain of a losing team when you’re only 20 really fucking sucks.

Like, here’s the thing: Connor is _very_ worried about his teammates’ wellbeing, what with them losing and all, and he’s the captain, so he’s gotta fix this problem. Really, it’s all on him if he doesn’t. And, to be fair, tensions in the locker room have been really high, so. Captain Connor is on the case.

He’s seen the rumors that Leon and Darnell are fighting. He can’t find any evidence of it, really, but they’re not speaking to each other, so he figures maybe they are fighting. And they live in the same building, and Darnell hasn’t been home a ton lately, and when he is he’s holed up in his room, so Connor has good reason to believe this could be an issue. Maybe _the_ issue.

So.

**Connor (8:11 pm)**

Hey guys wanna hang tonight? Mighty ducks is on

He sends the text and his heart races. The thrill of it all, really, is wondering when they’re going to respond. He doesn’t know why this feels so risky, when they’re two of his best friends, but this could really backfire if they are fighting, and Leon’s hurt… but taking risks is part of the job. Just call him a professional risk-taker, if you will.

**Leon (8:20 pm)**

Yaaa be up soon

**Darnell (8:21 pm)**

Ok

The response is civil, which is more than he was expecting, but he figures they’re putting on a brave face. Leon’s not one to broadcast his emotions openly, and Connor  _ lives  _ with Darnell and doesn’t know anything about this. He shakes his head, smiling a little. Dumb boys, honestly.

“Hey, man,” Darnell says, flopping on the couch. “The three of us haven’t hung in a while. You miss me?”

“Nah,” Connor says, and Darnell shoves him lightly. The door is suddenly opening, and Connor looks up, surprised. “Did we give you a key?” He scoots over toward Darnell who takes no notice.

“Uh, yeah?” Leon says, eyeing the couch suspiciously, but he sits next to Connor gingerly. Connor frowns. “Anyway. Which part is it at?”

“I don’t know, I just put it in the DVD player,” Connor says, and he presses play. Leon and Darnell shoot each other a look that Connor pointedly ignores in favor of quoting the first scene. He hears Leon chuckle, and relief blossoms in his chest.

By the time it’s halfway through, Leon’s fallen asleep on Connor’s shoulder, so Darnell grabs the remote and pauses the movie. “He’s a huge mood right now,” Darnell says. “I’m gonna head to bed, to be honest.” 

Connor shakes Leon awake. “Hey, man, you wanna stay here? You can sleep in my bed,” he offers. Leon shakes his head.

“Nah, it’s fine, I’ll sleep out here,” he says. “Night, guys.”

Connor looks at Darnell who shrugs, and they head back to their rooms. “Night,” Darnell says with a half-hearted wave. “See ya in the morning.” Connor waves back and settles in his bed, feeling his chest lighten a bit. Maybe getting them to open up about this will be easier than he thinks.

He wakes up in the morning and heads to the kitchen, the sound of voices chattering away making him curious. He stops in the doorway, and Leon and Darnell are sitting at the counter, chatting about nothing, making small talk about something Connor has no interest in, so he can only assume they’re doing it to be polite.

“Guys, hey,” he says, walking toward the coffee maker. Darnell laughs.

“Morning, Davo,” he says. “How’d you sleep?”

“Pretty well, you?” he says. He hears Leon choke on something, and he turns around, alarmed. “You okay?”

“Fine,” he says, wheezing slightly. Darnell frowns, patting his back. “Your couch is comfortable.”

“Well,” Connor says, and the silence that follows is only slightly awkward. Leon sets his coffee cup down and waves. 

“I’ll uh, I’ll see you guys tomorrow at skate,” he says, heading to the door. “Bye.” 

Connor looks to Darnell who just shrugs again. He goes to sit on the couch, but turns back at the last second. “Are you doing something today?” 

“Oh,” Connor says, racking his brain. His eyes light up. “I actually am, yeah, I’m meeting Nuge for lunch. Guess it’s been a while. He wanted to talk to me about something.”

“Ah,” Darnell says, and they both nod. “When are you leaving?”

“Uh, in an hour, probably.” 

“Cool.” Darnell sits on the couch, turns on the TV. “Have fun.” There’s a pause, like Darnell wants to say something.

“Did you want to come?” Connor asks, and Darnell laughs. 

“Nah,” he says. “I love Nuge, but you guys are close. Have a good time, though!” 

Connor… doesn’t know how to take any of that, so he leaves it. As he steps in the shower, he lets himself think of the night before, and tries to figure out if anything had been weird. It if it was, he hadn’t felt it. The air didn’t feel tense between the three of them, but then the morning was awkward. He can’t place why, exactly, but something was off. He shakes his head. Maybe this whole rumor was blown out of proportion, but he can’t be too lax. 

So he leaves Darnell on the couch, and goes to lunch with Nuge, and forgets about being a captain for a bit. And Nuge mentions proposing to his girlfriend, and they talk about Hallsy, and Ebs, and Connor manages to forget about the situation for an entire three hours. 

“So, what do you know about the Nursey and Drai situation?” Nuge asks through a mouthful of ice cream. Connor almost spits his out. “Oh come on, you don’t think we’ve seen the articles?”

“I mean, they’re very professional,” Connor says. Nuge just raises an eyebrow. Connor sighs. “Look, I don’t know much, but they don’t seem very friendly right now, okay?”

“Sure,” Nuge says easily. “Friendships go through ups and downs, though.” He runs a hand through his hair, awkwardly, and Connor doesn’t know if he’s talking about Darnell and Leon or him, Ebs, and Hallsy. 

“Yeah, but this is weird. They like, won’t admit to it being weird but I can tell that it is, they’re being so awkward,” Connor says, and Nuge gives him a look. “What?”

“Are you meddling? Do we need to rehash what happened last time?” Nuge stands up to throw his container away, and Connor follows suit. Nuge turns around, expectant. “Do we?”

“No, we don’t,” Connor says. “Look, I’m not meddling, okay? They’re my best friends and I’m the captain and I’m going to fix it.”

“Sure, and I’m gonna fix the plethora of problems that Hallsy and Ebs have, too,” Nuge says. It’s the closest he’s heard Nuge even get to admitting they’re fighting. “Davo, sometimes situations need to be left alone.”

“I mean, yeah,” Connor says, “but I know them, and I know I can fix whatever this is. Trust me on it.”

  
  


Connor is less sure he can fix it after a week of trying to get them to open up about literally anything, and he’s at the end of his rope. He’s currently sitting in between them on the couch, again, and they literally won’t speak to each other. 

**Connor (2:13 pm)**

It’s not me making it awkward is it?

**Nuge (2:15 pm)**

What makes you say that

**Connor (2:18 pm)**

You’re mean

Connor is almost positive it’s not on him, but Nuge’s text makes him nervous. Another text comes in, and it actually gives Connor pause.

**Nuge (2:19 pm)**

Why do you care so much anyway, it’s their relationship not yours

He gets up and pockets his phone, heading for the fridge, considering Nuge’s point. He stops with his hand on the handle. He loves Darnell and Leon, they’re his best friends. He wants them to be okay, and he likes being included in their—

Wait.

He gives them some half hearted excuse and goes out onto the balcony, thumb hovering over the call button. He backs out of that, not wanting to bother Nuge  _ again _ and calls Dylan, instead.

“Dylan, crisis,” he says, barely waiting for Dylan to get out a “hello.”

“Hi, Connor, I’m great,” Dylan says. Connor can practically see the eyeroll. “Tucson is nice, definitely, thanks for asking.”

“How do you handle being in love with two people at once,” Connor says, not even asking. His voice betrays all of the stress he’s feeling, and Dylan hums. “Dyl, please.”

“Okay, alright,” Dylan replies, and Connor hears him sigh. “This is about Nursey and Leon, right?”

“Wait,” Connor starts, and Dylan cuts him off with a laugh.

“Please, Davo,” Dylan says. “I hear everything from Ry.”

Connor sighs, shaky. The glass door slides open and he jumps, turning around to Leon’s concerned face.

“Hey, everything alright?” Leon asks, brows furrowed. “You look upset.” Connor nods quickly, and Leon cocks his head to the side. “You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Connor says, voice quiet. Leon nods and heads back in, and Dylan makes a noise over the phone. “What?”

“Listen, this isn’t the end of the world,” Dylan starts, and that notion is so  _ entirely  _ ridiculous that Connor laughs. And then he can’t stop laughing.

“Wow, Stromer, you’re fucking hilarious.” Connor wipes a tear from his eye. “They can barely talk to each other, and you think it’s not the end of the world that I like both of them? Funny.” Connor sits down in one of the balcony chairs. “Holy fuck, I’m a wreck.”

“Davo, deep breaths,” Dylan says. “It’s hard, man. But you know what?”

“What?” Connor snaps.

“If I know them, and I know you, it’ll be okay,” Dylan says, and Connor finally takes a deep breath, feeling like he just came up from underwater. “Now, let’s talk about how to win them over,” Dylan continues, and Connor laughs so hard he cries out of happiness this time.

  
  


The problem with figuring out that Connor’s in love with his two best friends who are  _ fighting  _ is that now he has to, like, act normal around them? 

And it’s not that he can’t act normal around them, he has for the past two and a half years. It’s just that he doesn’t even know if this is fixable, but he just wants to be a part of their togetherness, however that even works, and he doesn’t understand it. Dylan lets Connor talk over the phone until he tires himself out, and then gives him vague advice on how to deal with it. So, the point is that Connor is emphatically  _ not _ dealing with it. 

Like the other day, when Darnell was sitting at the kitchen counter, he clapped Connor on the shoulder as Connor walked past him, and Connor stuttered to a halt. “Hi?” he’d said, voice suspiciously high-pitched. Darnell had frowned.

“Hey,” he’d said. “You good?” Connor nodded and grabbed a Gatorade, hightailing it out of there so fast he didn’t even have time to gauge Darnell’s reaction. 

Or then last night, when he was nestled so comfortably between Leon and Darnell on his couch that he’d fallen asleep, and woken up to the two of them snoring away on him. He hadn’t known what to do, face growing hot, so he’d jumped up and run to the bathroom. 

“Davo, you okay?” he could hear Leon murmur from the other side of the door.

“Yeah, think I maybe ate something bad, ha ha,” Connor had said. Leon tried to open the door and Connor slammed against it.

“Connor?” he’d asked, and Connor sighed. 

“I’m sorry,” Connor had said, and Leon eventually walked away. 

So. You could say that Connor wasn’t dealing well with this at all. And Leon and Darnell had noticed, according to Nuge, and were  _ talking  _ about it. 

“So, I’m not incompetent after all,” Connor finished, and Dylan just blinked at him over facetime. “Right?”

“You’re now purposefully making things weird between you and your two best friends who you’re in love with because it’s forcing them to talk,” Dylan says, and Connor digests that, and then nods. “You’re nuts, Davo.”

“Listen!” Connor exclaims, and then Darnell pops his head in. Connor squeaks, and Dylan’s jaw drops. “Uh, hi?”

“Hey, who are you yelling at?” Darnell asks, smiling easily and leaning over Connor’s shoulder. “Oh hey, it’s Stromer 2!” He waves, and Dylan waves back. Connor pushes Darnell off of him.

“God, give me some privacy, maybe?” he asks, laughing awkwardly, and Darnell leaves with a chuckle. Connor puts his head in his hands, and sighs.

“Oh buddy,” Dylan says, and Connor fixes him with a look, but Dylan pushes forward. “You’ve got it bad.” 

Connor doesn’t even try to tell Dylan he’s wrong, this time.

  
  
  


After hours of talking to Dylan, Nuge, and Ryan on the phone, Connor has come up with a list of things he has to talk to Leon and Darnell about, all of which boils down to the idea that he’s in love with both of them. Connor grapples with this, then sighs, pressing the call button again.

“Dyl, I can’t do it,” he says, pacing back and forth in his apartment. He’s going to wear a pattern down in the rug, but he doesn’t care. “They’re going to think I’m crazy if I do.”

“Davo, buddy, deep breaths,” Dylan says. “Remember what we talked about.”

“We talked about  _ so much _ ,” Connor whines, which makes Dylan snort. “Dylan.”

“Connor.” Dylan sighs, and then suddenly he sounds further away, and Connor can hear a voice in the background, asking Dylan a question. “Hang on. What’s up, babe?”

Connor blinks rapidly, and then he thinks back to the last time he asked Dylan anything about his life. He sits on his couch. He thinks it might have been August. It’s November, now.

“Am I a terrible friend?” he asks, mostly to himself, but Dylan and the voice in the background pause. 

“...No?” Dylan says. “Why would you say that?”

“Because I haven’t asked how you were at all,” Connor says, entirely miserable. The person that’s not Dylan laughs, which Connor finds rude, frankly.

“Oh, McDavid, buddy, you’re really going through it. I don’t think Dylan would’ve said anyway.” It’s sympathetic, though, and it sounds like Nick Merkley, and Connor didn’t even know that Dylan was dating someone, let alone having it be  _ Nick Merkley _ .

“He’s right,” Dylan says, and then there’s a mumbled  _ something _ that Connor can’t make out, and then the background noise quiets. “Hey, Con, I’m not mad at you. You’re not a terrible friend. I could’ve told you, too.”

“I can’t tell them,” Connor says, quietly. “It’ll ruin everything.” 

They’re silent for a while. Connor goes over the pros and cons again, and again, and again, and ultimately decides he can’t say a thing. He just can’t. It would be too embarrassing, or too hurtful, or too...much, and he doesn’t want to hurt them either, not when they’re so fragile already. 

“Con?” Dylan says, and it’s almost so quiet that Connor misses it.

“What’s up?”

“I love you,” he says, and Connor takes a deep breath.

“I love you, too.” He plays with a loose string on the fabric of the couch. “How’s Merkley?” 

So Dylan tells him, and Connor lets the sound of Dylan’s voice wash over him, the stories of a relationship that has worked out, and lets himself believe that Leon and Darnell would even entertain the idea of liking him back.

  
  
  


Which makes the whole business of walking in on them half-clothed and making out entirely awkward. 

“Oh my god!” Leon yells, clamoring for a pillow, and Darnell dives off the couch, bringing a blanket down with him.

“Holy shit, oh my god,” Connor says, covering his eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

“Davo, I thought you were  _ out _ ,” Darnell says, covering himself, and Connor turns around.

“Is this hate sex?” Connor asks, and then he hears Leon laugh louder than he’s ever heard in his life.

“Hate sex?!” Leon’s putting his shirt on as he speaks, and Connor hears Darnell’s deep belly laugh. “No, no, Davo.”

“We’re uh,” Darnell starts. “Could you turn around, please?”

“Sure.” Connor keeps his eyes covered, and Leon snorts. “What?”

“Uncover your eyes, dude,” Leon says, and Connor does that in time to see both of their amused faces. “Well, this isn’t really the way we wanted you to find out that we were dating.”

Connor nods, and then pauses. “Wait.”

“Yeah, we were trying to keep it a secret for a bit, is the thing, because we didn’t want it to get too awkward,” Darnell says, and Connor blinks.

“Wait,” Connor says again, and they finally look at him. “You’re… you don’t hate each other?”

“What?” Darnell asks. “What are you talking about?”

“The whole drama? You and Drai got in a fight?” Connor looks between them wildly, and their puzzled expressions don’t help him at all. 

“Con… none of that was true,” Leon says. “Like, we were trying to hide our relationship because the team is so down, I don’t know.”

“Maybe it wasn’t smart,” Darnell continues, “but I swear that we’re fine.”

“We kind of just liked hanging out with you,” Leon says, faint blush on his cheeks. “So we didn’t correct you.”

Connor sits down at the counter. The whole past few months feel so anticlimactic now, knowing that they’re not even fighting. Connor blinks again, tilts his head, trying to wrap his head around the fact that what they were hiding wasn’t that they were fighting, but that they were, in fact, just dating. 

“Hang on,” Connor says, holding a finger up, and then he steps outside and calls Nuge.

“Hello?” 

“So did you know Nursey and Leon are dating?” Connor says immediately. He waits, but Nuge is silent for a while. “Hello?”

“Wow,” Nuge says, and then Connor is pretty peeved.

“So you let me freak out about this  _ knowing  _ they were dating?” he says. “Nuge, that’s low.”

“Hey, I didn’t know any more than you!” Nuge laughs. “Though I did tell you meddling wasn’t a good idea.”

“You’re absolutely no help and I’m ending our friendship,” Connor says. “Goodbye.” He turns around, still stewing uncomfortably, and sees Leon and Darnell just staring at him. 

“Are you—” Leon starts, but Connor holds up a hand, and whatever Leon was going to say dies out.

“I’m confused,” Connor says. “Why did you want to keep hanging out with me?”

Leon and Darnell look at each other, then back at Connor, but Connor can’t look them in the eye. He doesn’t want to be rejected when he’s barely even said his piece, and all of this hurts so much already. 

“Connor, we like you,” Darnell says, taking a step closer. Connor furrows his brows. “Like, we were pretty sure you were giving off vibes, you know?” 

“Vibes?” Connor asks, heart in his throat.

“Yeah, vibes,” Darnell says. “Like, ‘you like us’ vibes. Were we wrong?”

When Connor looks up, Darnell is standing right in front of him, face open and caring and Connor doesn’t know what to think. Leon is smiling softly from where he’s kneeling on the couch. Connor looks at him, then back at Darnell, then at Leon, then Darnell again, and he takes a deep breath.

“You weren’t wrong,” he says. Darnell bites his lip and smiles, cupping Connor’s face. “Can I…” he trails off, and Darnell nods, and they lean in and kiss. There’s a thud, and then Leon is running over to them and crushing them both in a hug.

“Fuck yes, this is the best,” he says, making them both laugh. Connor’s face is flushed and he’s still nervous as all hell, but he thinks they might be worth it.

  
  


(They definitely are.)

 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading :)
> 
> untagged character mentions include ryan strome, jordan eberle and taylor hall, and there are mentions of the rumors that ran around the oilers locker room earlier in the season.


End file.
